Commentary for Sotah 57:17

תיתי

So it is necessary [to have Rab's teaching].<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' That it is sufficient if the object touched is a rational being for a doubtful case to be unclean. It is not required that the defiling agent should also be a rational being. ');">¹⁷</span> ON THAT DAY R. AKIBA EXPOUNDED, AND EVERY EARTHEN VESSEL etc. Since it has no [basis in Scripture according to which it is unclean],<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' As R. Johanan declares in the Mishnah; and yet he held it to be defiled. ');">¹⁸</span> why should it be unclean? — Rab Judah said in the name of Rab, It has none from the Torah, but it has one as a deduction from <i>a fortiori</i> reasoning: If a tebul yom,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'bathed during day', i.e., an unclean person who has undergone immersion but awaits sunset before he regains his state of purity. V. Lev. XXII, 7. ');">¹⁹</span> who is allowed with non-holy food,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' And does not defile it. ');">²⁰</span> disqualifies<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' [ [H] This term denotes the last degree of uncleanness which cannot communicate defilement to any other object coming into contact with it.] ');">²¹</span> the heave-offering,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' By touching it so that it may not be eaten by a priest. v. Yeb. 74b. ');">²²</span> how much more so must a loaf unclean in the second degree, which is disqualified in the case of non-holy food,<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' [If a creeping thing touches an object which in turn comes into contact with non-holy food, the latter, which is in the second degree of uncleanness, is disqualified; v. Lev. XI, 33.] ');">²³</span> render the heave-offering unclean in the third degree! It can, however, be objected, This<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' The disqualifying of the heave-offering. ');">²⁴</span> applies to a tebul yom because he may be a source of primary defilement.<span class="x" onmousemove="('comment',' Lit., 'father of defilement'. By, e.g., having touched a corpse or by himself being a leper. Tebul yom cannot thus be made the basis of deduction. ');">²⁵</span> [But it may be answered,] You can draw [the necessary conclusion]

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